"They're murdering Blacks and Jews and Arabs, here" read a huge banner carried in the protest march on the streets of Paris last night. Twenty thousand people were there – there were Blacks, and Jews and Arabs, but most of them were neither - just people who heard of racist murders being perpetrated in their country and went into the streets to express indignation and protest.
It was not the first time that such a terrible thing, a serial killing, took place in a school - but this school was chosen because it was Jewish. Rabbi Jonathan Sandler was killed, and his two children Gabriel and Arieh, and the girl child Myriam Monsonego. And the same killer is assumed to have also killed three soldiers, the Black Carribean Abel Chennouf and the North Africans Imad Ibn Ziaten and Mohammed Legouad. All killed by the same murderer.
But who is really to blame?
To most citizens of France- and to most of the politicians there, too - all this is pretty clear. To Israel's Prime Minister and his ministers it is probably a bit less obvious. In a first and immediate response, when it was still unclear exactly who was responsible, Netanyahu has already marked his target and pointed an accusing finger at Hamas and the UN. And by the next morning, the real culprit was unmasked - none other than Catherine Ashton.
Yes, Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, has come under a concerted barrage of vituperation from virtually everybody: Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak and Foreign Minister Lieberman, (on the phone from distant China) and also the Leader of the "Opposition" Tzipi Livni. Today, Catherine Ashton hosted in Brussels, a group of Palestinian children from Gaza who came to visit. She talked about her appreciation of the young Arabs who led the Arab Spring revolution, and for the young Palestinians who maintain themselves in difficult situations, of young people and children killed and murdered around the world. Of the Belgian children killed in the overturning of a bus in Switzerland, and the Jewish children murdered in Toulouse, and the Norwegian children murdered by a racist in Oslo last year, and the Syrian children victims of the incessant carnage, and the Israeli children in Sderot and... [yes, also] the Palestinian children in Gaza.
The government and the mass media are united in anger and wrath and unrestrained and uncontrollable fury at this comparison, the horrific and terrible insult hurled at the most moral army in the world. Everybody demands of her an apology, apology, apology, APOLOGY, nothing less than an apology. How could you make such a comparison, how could you? After all, we never kill children on purpose, it always always happens only and solely by an unfortunate accident for which we are very sorry.
To most citizens of France- and to most of the politicians there, too - all this is pretty clear. To Israel's Prime Minister and his ministers it is probably a bit less obvious. In a first and immediate response, when it was still unclear exactly who was responsible, Netanyahu has already marked his target and pointed an accusing finger at Hamas and the UN. And by the next morning, the real culprit was unmasked - none other than Catherine Ashton.
Yes, Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, has come under a concerted barrage of vituperation from virtually everybody: Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak and Foreign Minister Lieberman, (on the phone from distant China) and also the Leader of the "Opposition" Tzipi Livni. Today, Catherine Ashton hosted in Brussels, a group of Palestinian children from Gaza who came to visit. She talked about her appreciation of the young Arabs who led the Arab Spring revolution, and for the young Palestinians who maintain themselves in difficult situations, of young people and children killed and murdered around the world. Of the Belgian children killed in the overturning of a bus in Switzerland, and the Jewish children murdered in Toulouse, and the Norwegian children murdered by a racist in Oslo last year, and the Syrian children victims of the incessant carnage, and the Israeli children in Sderot and... [yes, also] the Palestinian children in Gaza.
The government and the mass media are united in anger and wrath and unrestrained and uncontrollable fury at this comparison, the horrific and terrible insult hurled at the most moral army in the world. Everybody demands of her an apology, apology, apology, APOLOGY, nothing less than an apology. How could you make such a comparison, how could you? After all, we never kill children on purpose, it always always happens only and solely by an unfortunate accident for which we are very sorry.
For example, this child which our air force killed in Gaza a week ago. A very sad case, what was this child's name? Well, the Israeli media did not publish his name, an anonymous child, but we're sorry do you hear; it was an accident. Also the three hundred children killed during Cast Lead, none of them we killed on purpose. Three hundred cases of regrettable accidents, which happened despite the very careful surgical procedures which we undertook. (Well, even with surgeons in the operating room it sometimes happens that a hand is slipping, even the speakers of the Syrian Army are already talking about surgical procedures taken against insurgents in Damascus.).
In short, we are the most moral army in the world as our Foreign Minister Lieberman has said himself. So we demand Ashton's immediate apology.
